Neurath's Boat

International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers

It is, of course, fairly common to encounter people talking about sex trafficking in various political discussions, or to encounter it as a plot element in entertainment. It seems worth blogging about because it's an area where I have somewhat contrarian opinions, as a result of having looked up some of the academic research on the subject at various times. This has led me to be a follower of various sex worker advocates, whose work I would recommend. The most crucial piece of information for anybody actually interested in the well being of women who have engaged in sex work is that sex workers consistently experience more abuse from police than from clients or employers. This is why pretty much all sex worker advocacy organizations favor decriminalization (repeal of laws against prostitution) as the single policy most likely to benefit sex workers.

The day for this event was chosen to coincide with the sentencing of Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, who murdered several dozen sex workers over the course of many years; of course another hoped for advantage of decriminalization would be to make it possible for sex workers to get help from the authorities when threatened, instead of facing prosecution themselves. It is also hoped that decriminalization would reduce the stigma, and make it more likely that the authorities will take harm to sex workers more seriously; the indifference of the police certainly contributed to Ridgeway's ability to get away with his crimes for so long before finally being caught.

This issue is also why I am not one of those enthusiastic about Kamala Harris, the senator from California who many are talking about as a possible presidential candidate; I am quite unimpressed myself by her record as a prosecutor, particularly because of her publicity-seeking prosecution of Backpage for carrying advertisements for sex work. Backpage and similar online resources have a long history of cooperating with investigations of underage or coerced prostitution; forcing those who formerly employed such services to advertise in more underground channels actually hinders the effort to deal with those problems.

I personally consider the well-being of sex workers a sufficient reason to advocate for decriminalization, but for those who need added incentive, there is also research linking decriminalization to an overall reduction in sexual violence. In any event, those are some scattered thoughts on a topic I probably don't blog about enough; attempting to make up for that a little today.

Interesting research

There's a discussion here of a study into gender differences in the use of tentative communication styles, employment of various forms of hedging and disclaimers.  The stereotype is that women are more prone to this sort of thing, but the study apparently found the situation to be more complex than that.  I think I've noticed a tendency for women philosophers to write more tentatively than men, though of course I've noticed exceptions (nothing tentative about Susan Haack's writing, for instance, while on the other hand this very sentence by a male philosopher is rather tentative).  But, of course, one tends to pay more attention to confirming data for theories one had in advance.  For all I know an objective study of academic writing in philosophy would reveal that it fits the pattern described in the Palomares study, of equal tentativeness when the subject isn't inherently gendered.  I hope somebody eventually does such a study.

Strangeness

Hubert Schwyzer, who taught me a great deal about Kant, also occasionally talked about his days as a graduate student at Berkeley in the 60s.  Among his other stories, he reported that a great change in fashion happened at that time.  When he started, all the professors wore ties.  By about halfway through his time there, he said you could tell a professor's political views by whether he wore a tie or not.  By the time he left Berkeley, no professors were wearing ties.

Schwyzer is, sadly, no longer with us, and the story he told was of a time before I was born.  I am thus rather mystified by this piece.  Admittedly, it's about jeans rather than ties, but it's still the same fashion war that his side lost almost half a century ago.  Isn't it time to concede defeat?

(I should perhaps add that I have no objection to people dressing up.  I just object to it being mandatory, as well as its use to reinforce gender roles, which seems to be something Will considers a feature rather than a bug).

It's just one book, but...

Given the continuing poor state of philosophy when it comes to feminist issues, it seems necessary to watch out for this sort of thing.  I just picked up The Cambridge Companion to Carnap, and happened to glance through the bibliography.  There turned out to be a surprising gap.  By most accounts, Susan Haack's 1977 paper on Kantian elements in Carnap's Aufbau was one of the more important early studies contributing to the current Carnap revival, and the current Carnap revival is the topic of the book.  But Haack is absent from the lengthy bibliography.  It may be an innocent accident, it may mean nothing, but with philosophy's depressing history of ignoring the contributions of women, one can't help but worry when it seems like there might be yet another instance of the problem.  Haack is even around, and I thought pretty well respected; usually the historical pattern has been that women in philosophy have sometimes been able to get recognition among their contemporaries but have almost always been been ignored by later generations.

Continuing to research evolutionary psychology

Helen Longino gave a talk at Brown a couple of months ago, advocating a pluralistic approach to the study of human behavior.  She condemned various reductionist approaches, including what she saw as crypto-reductionism.*  While her examples were specific projects in psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, she tried to connect her criticism to the broader project of reductionism in the philosophy of science, and when I questioned her after the talk about which philosophers advocated the views she was describing (since I sincerely couldn't think of any; even philosophers like myself who call themselves reductionists have a very different idea of reduction than that she attributes to the scientists she criticizes), she made a reference to the "whole unity of science movement" as an example of these ideas being widespread in philosophy.  I found this unsatisfying, as the unity of science crowd were precisely the people who seemed to me to not have been making or encouraging any of the mistakes she criticized in her particular examples.

I still find her case that philosophers are sources of some of the bad philosophical ideas she criticizes dubious.  In my reading of evolutionary psychology I saw little evidence of the influence of any work in the philosophy of science (sadly, there was philosophical content, but it was blissfully uninformed by any work by philosophers, as I mentioned when I talked about Palmer and Thornhill on causation).  I'm sure I could have made the point much more sharply if I'd had more examples of my own of the sort of bad science she wanted to criticize, and to which her pluralism was supposed to be an alternative.  So I wish I'd read the evolutionary psychology material before her talk.  Perhaps I'll see her again.  Or, better yet, perhaps I should look up some of her papers and write up a paper of my own discussing these issues.

* Not her word, but it seems an appropriate one for people who constantly talk about complicated interplay between genes and developmental and environmental factors, and then provide explanations which are entirely or nearly entirely based on genes alone.

The science of A Natural History of Rape

There is a dramatic shift in Palmer and Thornhill's text, starting in chapter 3, and ending at the end of chapter 4.  This is the region of the book where the authors discuss the particular evidence they find most relevant to their theses about rape.  In this region of the book, they frequently mention issues which they think require more study, and make proposals for tests of their speculations.  Somewhat less frequently, but still notably (especially in contrast to the rest of their book), they mention data which seems to raise questions for their hypotheses.  The data that they mention in this portion of the book is certainly intriguing and suggestive, though it is quite unclear what exactly to conclude from it.

Since I had wanted not to hate the book, it having been recommended to me by someone I like and have some respect for, I felt very relieved when I started to get into chapter 3, and hoped the rest of the book would continue more in that tone.  This looked like science; sure, they were engaging in speculations, and their evidence was far from conclusive, but the phenomena of human behavior are extremely complex.  Making speculative claims and proposing further tests seems an entirely appropriate procedure.  Unfortunately, there are reasons to worry even about this part of the book.

I will not comment in detail about the quality of the data that Palmer and Thornhill present; I am not by any means an expert in their field.  Evolution, Gender, and Rape contains much discussion of their evidence by those with more knowledge of the field.  I found the essays in that volume of uneven quality, but some were quite good, and they often cited fascinating evidence and speculations of their own.  Some of the essays also raised serious questions about Palmer and Thornhill's methods of analyzing their data, which surely need to be examined; such issues represent the first problem with the more scientific part of Palmer and Thornhill's text.

The second problem is that it ends so quickly.  It constitutes roughly a quarter of the book, with the remaining 3/4 devoted to virulent and sometimes dishonest polemic against feminist social psychologists, as well as some very bad philosophy of science.

An obvious speculation is that they did not, in fact, have enough material to make a substantial book, and padded it out with deliberate attempts to provoke controversy (if this was their goal, they certainly succeeded).  The next question for my investigation of bias and methodology is whether the flaws in the science section show any sort of pattern, such that Palmer and Thornhill's motivations might have affected that part of the book as well; this question will require far more thorough investigation than I have so far done, so I probably won't be posting any more about this particular book for some time.  Which will probably be a relief to many.

Power in relationships

Machiavelli said it was better to be feared than loved, because fear was a stronger motivator; people who love you will still sell you out to people they fear.  However, he taught a further lesson some of his modern admirers forget.  He said that it was important not to be hated, for even if you're feared, those who hate you may find a way to overcome their fear and strike at you anyway.

Amanda has long suggested that patriarchally inclined men apply Machiavelli's advice to romance (though they seem as forgetful about the hatred part as most of Machiavelli's shallow readers).  I do not know if Machievelli provided the best advice for princes; perhaps he did, perhaps he did not.  I have my doubts that his advice is as applicable to international relations in the modern world as it was to international relations in his time.  In the field of romance, though, I find it hard to see as anything other than idiotic.

On a purely practical level, those who fear you will seek to lessen their connection with you.  If you're a prince and they're your subjects, this may be very difficult, and all ways of doing so may be more fearful.  In the realm of dating, though, you are likely to have many rivals, and simply doing without romance is a more tenable option than simply doing without government.  No doubt this is why the patriarchal sorts Amanda rants about try to restrict the options women have, but they would have to be absurdly restricted in order to eliminate this disanalogy (banning abortion isn't enough; you would need to bring in the Taliban).

More importantly, of course, those who love you will seek to increase their connection with you, actively seeking ways to increase the levels of mutual support you provide to one another.  This is likely more trouble than it's worth to a prince; a prince has many subjects, and subjects getting to feel that close to the prince just produces more demands on his time and increases the risk of things falling apart when he can't satisfy everyone.  But in a romantic relationship, at least in the idealized form encouraged in our culture, nothing like that issue would appear to arise.  Having enough time for just one other person should be entirely possible.

Thus, even if we confine ourselves to the pragmatic and selfish goal of getting a partner who does what you want, I suggest that there is good reason for men to think Machiavelli's advice should not be applied to romance.  Of course, one might have thought to begin with that love should be a matter of, well, love, and not a matter of fear.

Statistical tools

I follow Language Log, because since the 20th century the linguistic emphasis in philosophy has been sufficiently great that I frequently get the linguists' jokes.  It also often ends up covering interesting topics.  Mark Liberman has recently been criticizing the shoddy science in Loanne Brizendine's The Female Brain, and his most recent post on the topic introduced me to a statistical concept with which I was heretofore unfamiliar, the cohen's d effect size.  I suppose it is unsurprising that statisticians would have developed lots of different ways of measuring the sizes of effects.  It is also not surprising, though it is depressing, that these more informative statistical tools are so rarely employed in any examination of the significance of gender differences in the brain.  I'm glad some people are keeping an eye out for the shoddy science; if only they got as much press.

EC

This blog post about difficulties obtaining EC has been discussed all over the blogosphere.  It of course makes a good argument for making EC non-prescription.  Though most of the issues raised have been mentioned by others, I thought I'd weigh in about the class issues involved in all these contraceptive debates.  I was at Brown's health services today to have my blood pressure checked, and noted on the table in the waiting room a little poster about emergency contraception.  It basically indicated what EC was, listed a 24 hour number to make an appointment if EC was needed, and mentioned that "anticipatory prescriptions" were available.  Now, it is hardly surprising that an Ivy League school would take the implied attitudes toward its female students (namely, that their health is important and their sex lives none of the school's business).  Still, many in the blogosopher have noted that the various restrictions on reproductive rights which states have squeezed through or which are imposed by self-righteous health care providers or whatever overwhelmingly hurt poor women, which is no doubt why there isn't as much opposition to the various restrictions as there should be.  The restrictions don't affect the privileged much or at all, so they don't see any reason to worry about the restrictions, and when the privileged aren't worried about something, politicians rarely do anything about it.  This is one more bit of data supporting that observation.

Names and Pronouns

One of the blogs I read has a post on these topics.  I've already discussed one of these topics, but I haven't discussed the traditions of naming after marriage.

My lover and I have occasionally discussed the issue of marriage, mostly because we like having health insurance so it'd be nice if one of us had a job with coverage for spouses as a benefit to be able to take advantage of that.  We've also discussed the subject of names.  The late great Richard Sylvan had an innovative solution to the problem.  He and his second wife were big feminists, so they didn't want to change her name to his, but they did want to have the same name.  So, since they were both big tree-huggers, they chose to both change their names to Sylvan (previously he was Richard Routley).

I commented on this story that this might not be a good move for most academics; in logic and metaphysics Sylvan was well enough known that most people probably knew about the change, but a more obscure scholar, or one in a larger field than philosophy where it's harder to keep track of everyone, might take a hit to their reputation from a name change, as some people might not realize that the older papers under a different name were by the same person.  So I thought academics should probably just keep their names regardless of their sex, at least if they have any publications prior to getting married.

Somehow, Shelly turned this into anyone who's published keeps their name, and anybody who isn't doesn't.  So she's not changing her name, since she has several published poems, and in her continuing effort to encourage me to get off my butt and get something published, she says unless I do get something published, if we get married I have to become a Chang.

Of course, this leaves the question of children.  I don't know what the good general solution to that is.  We're both pretty sure we don't want children, and quite sure we don't want biological children (she's got a history of genetic problems in her family for which she might be a carrier, and also has no interest in the whole pregnancy thing, and I was adopted myself and have warm feelings about the institution of adoption).  If we were ever suddenly wealthy and feeling like we had way to much free time and energy and needed something to sap all that, we've decided we'd probably want to adopt a Chinese girl.  If we did that, we'd probably make her a Chang.

Nice Guys

Amanda is off on another rant about the self-styled nice guys who complain that all the women go for jerks instead of jumping the sensitive, feminist guys who would treat them well.

While certainly Amanda makes valid points, as usual, articles like that touch off a nerve in some of us.  I no longer think of myself as in any way a nice guy, I'm too depressed, bitter, and cynical in my old age (and besides, I'm getting a decent amount of sex, though that probably has more to do with being experienced and getting to the gym these days than with depression, bitterness, and cynicism being attractive features), but I used to be somewhere on the nice guy spectrum, and I know there are some youngsters, including some of Amanda's readers, that feel more strongly what I feel in sympathy for the young me.

So, I'm going to do two things.  First, I'm going to identify the phenomenon in question as a continuum.  At one end is the Nice Guy, the character Amanda is talking about who feels entitled to the pussy of every woman he treats with any respect whatever.  At the other end is the Shy Feminist Man, who likes women, has lots of women as good friends, has all the right political views, but is frustrated with what he views as an unrelated problem, namely that he isn't getting laid.

The extremes are, of course, rare.  Probably nearly pure examples of the NG exist, but likely most are not drawn to the NG strategy unless they have at least a sliver of genuine feminist sympathies.  Still, a sliver doesn't cut it; guys over on the NG end of the spectrum deserve everything Amanda lays on them.

Pure examples of the SFM are probably even rarer; frustration with one's love life is a major source of bitterness, which can of course lead to negative feelings about those by whom one feels rejected and lead one who started as a good SFM toward NGness.  But there are certainly guys who are more SFMs than NGs.  One sign you might be on this side of the spectrum is if you have a lot of women as friends, and they give you Amanda-type rants about nice guys, but they always insist (sincerely) that they don't mean you when they're talking about the nice guys they hate.  Of course, if you're one of those SFMs, that won't entirely reassure you, as you'll probably note that of all of these women who say you're really OK, that you're not an NG, none are showing any signs of being romantically interested in you.

Now, being a feminist is not a dating strategy, so the point of my advice isn't to say guys should become feminists or stay feminists because they'll get laid a lot if they do it right.  The reason to be a feminist is that women deserve to be treated as people.  Nothing more to it than that.  But, again, I have sympathy for all the poor SFMs out there, so I thought I'd give them some dating advice based on my experience.

So, guys, the biggest key is that the reason SFMs don't get laid has a lot more to do with the S than with the F.  You're not likely to get into a sexual relationship with a woman if you don't make it clear that you're sexually interested in her.  Jerks generally don't have a problem with making that clear, and it is that, rather than their being jerks, which leads to them having more success than you do.  Now, you don't have to be crass and disrespectful in making clear your sexual intentions; friendly and flirty is likely to work better, in fact.  But you do need to express your sexual intentions, and be clear about them.

Of course, that isn't easy.  Clearly expressing your attraction means the potential for clearly being rejected, which is very painful.  And that's where the F can really work against you, but only if you're engaged in rationalization.  You want to find excuses to avoid rejection.  Taking the view that any kind of sexual advance is disrespectful, objectifying, insert your favorite feminist buzzword here, is a convenient excuse for not making any kind of sexual advances and so not having to deal with them being rejected.  But feminism certainly doesn't say that; if you're using it as an excuse to avoid making any advances, rather than as a reason to try to be polite and decent about them, then you need to realize that this is only an excuse.

Then you need to get past that excuse, and stop expecting women to do all the work for you.  By using that excuse, you're not doing them any kind of favor, not even a small one, and they don't owe you anything, however small, in return.  Certainly they don't owe it to you to throw themselves at your feet, taking all the risk of rejection that you can't face.

Inclusive language

Some feminists have long considered it a problem that English uses the masculine pronoun for persons of indeterminate gender.  Various solutions have been proposed to this, and some have been adopted to varying degrees.  I often use the "he or she" or "his or her" approach myself, feeling that a few extra syllables never hurt anyone, and being, perhaps uncharacteristically, conservative about introducing entirely new words.

Clearly connected with this issue, there seems to be a convention which has arisen among my fellow philosophers, or at least the younger generation thereof, of making the generic people of our philosophical examples always female.  Being the hopeless slave of fashion that I am, I have also tended to follow this trend.  Certainly in philosophy I can see where this would be thought to have the sort of desirable effects inclusive language is supposed to produce.  Philosophers are mostly science groupies, and almost without exception self-obsessed, so the characters in philosophical examples are disproportionately scientists and philosophers.  Certainly it is healthy to remind ourselves that it's perfectly possible for women to be in either of those categories.

Sometimes it feels a little weird.  If I am speaking of the typical reductionist realist, and I have occasion to say that she believes X, I feel some resistance, because when thinking of the typical reductionist realist, I'm pretty much thinking of David Armstrong.  Probably, though, it's healthy to encounter this resistance; I mean to be writing of what I'm assuming are the many people like Armstrong, and it's useful to stop and make sure that there are indeed a significant number of other philosophers who are on the same page with Armstrong on the issue I'm considering, as otherwise I'm not really speaking of any kind of typical category of philosophers.

In any event, I tend to feel like on this issue I have been nothing more than a follower of emerging trends.  As I've said, I think some of the emerging trends are good, but I would welcome closer examination of them.  Are there problems with how we've been doing things?  Are there ways to do better?  Any thoughts are welcome.